Polo Ralph Lauren Sues Jordache Over Sport Emblem

By ALLISON FASS

Published: August 11, 2000

Forget the horses and the wooden mallets. This polo match is taking place in a courtroom, not on a field.

Polo Ralph Lauren, the fashion company is on one side, and the United States Polo Association, the governing body of the sport since 1890, and Jordache, are on the other.

Jordache makes men's and women's sportwear for the association. The clothes have the association's name and a double image of a horse with a polo-playing rider. Polo Ralph Lauren says in a lawsuit that the use of the name ''polo'' and the symbol of a polo player on a horse on clothes infringes on the Polo Ralph Lauren trademark by confusing consumers.

''It's not that we think they don't have the right to call themselves the United States Polo Association, because of course they do,'' said Anthony Lo Cicero, a lawyer for Polo Ralph Lauren in New York. ''But when they use the word 'polo' in an emphasized way and use symbols that look like our symbol and copy our trade dress -- the way in which trademarks appear -- then we consider that trademark infringement.''

Jordache rejects those arguments, and in a countersuit filed this week contended that Polo Ralph Lauren has now pressured some of Jordache's customers to stop buying its goods.

Polo Ralph Lauren ''has contacted customers of Jordache and licensees of the United States Polo Association and attempted to intimidate them to stop buying product, claiming that all the logos infringe on Polo Ralph Lauren,'' said Robert A. Spiegelman, a lawyer for Jordache. ''They've probably caused Jordache to lose many millions of dollars in sales -- going to stores and customers of Jordache and making false statements.''

Polo Ralph Lauren has faced off before with the polo association. A year ago, a federal court ruled that the association had to change the name of its official magazine, Polo. And in 1984, a federal judge ruled that the Lauren company could have trademarks and logos that the association had argued were generic to the sport.

''The interesting thing will be to see how the court draws the lines between the two -- to respect each of their rights but to avoid confusion,'' said Tony Fletcher, a trademark lawyer at the New York office of Fish & Richardson, who is not involved in the current case.

Jordache is no stranger to legal fights. The company battled with a rival jeans maker, Guess, in court for seven years before reaching a settlement in 1980.

Correction: August 14, 2000, Monday Because of an editing error, an article in Business Day on Friday about a dispute between Polo Ralph Lauren and Jordache misstated the settlement date of a legal battle between Jordache and a rival jeans maker, Guess. It was 1990, not 1980.